Mia's car sped off out of the plaza, and Tyler let the door click shut. Before turning to face Danai, he gathered his thoughts. He couldn't meet her kids tonight if he was going to keep that appointment with Mia tomorrow.

"I'm going to have to cancel tonight," he said as he turned around.

"Oh." Danai's face puckered with concern. "An emergency?"

"Yeah, family. I'm really sorry."

Danai waved him off. "No, no. You gotta take care of your family first. Your mom, or Maggie, or Emily?"

Tyler wandered behind the store's counter, hoping something other than a lie would pop into his mind. He couldn't tell her about Mia for more reasons than Mia's privacy. Already he was second guessing going along with her plan without asking more questions.

Pregnant. With his child.

Of course, he'd been in enough long-term relationships to think about having kids. With a few of those women, he would have been happy if they'd come to him pregnant from a birth control malfunction. But Mia being pregnant? So young, so different from the women he normally dated? This pregnancy didn't feel like a happy accident but instead a dreadful consequence from thinking with his dick instead of his brain.

"Emily," he said when he realized Danai was still waiting for a response. "It's just a lot, you know, with Omar and now my dad." Inside, he cringed. She'd kill him for using her to lie to Danai. Especially since he couldn't tell her why he'd lied. But he couldn't have them meeting in passing and Danai mentioning this conversation.

"I can't even imagine." Danai rubbed Tyler's shoulder. "We can do it another night. Don't even give it a second thought. I hadn't told my kids, anyway."

He nodded but couldn't meet her concerned gaze.

"I just stopped by to say hi and to say I was looking forward to tonight." She laughed and checked her watch. "I have a class in half an hour. Maybe we can get together tomorrow night instead? The kids are with their dad."

"Yeah," Tyler agreed. He wasn't sure how he'd feel tomorrow. Right now, his mind was a spiraling buffering or a failed to load notification flashing across his consciousness. The encounter with Mia wasn't processing properly. He didn't think tomorrow's events were likely to change that feeling.

His phone buzzed in his hand. With a frown, he read Mia's message. Jesus. Already it was a fucking drama-fest.

Don't come. You seem happy. I'll be fine. You're not getting the clinic info.

He pushed his phone into his back pocket, his jaw clenched. Why didn't he ask what hotel she was staying at? If she was still in Little Falls, the list was pretty short. But if she was on her way to NY City, there was no way he'd find her.

"Everything okay?" Danai asked.

"I need to get going." He grabbed his coat off the rack behind the counter. "I'll walk you out."

"You look stressed. Bad news for Emily?"

He shook his head, unwilling to drag his sister further into this web of lies. "No, that was a message from a supplier. Bit frustrated with them at the moment." Understatement. There were few things Tyler hated more than people deciding things for him. It was bad enough that Mia was having the abortion without discussing it with him in any detail. He'd been present at enough dinner conversations with his family as a kid to know it was her body and her decision. His father had been adamant and vocal about pro-choice. But to cut him out of supporting her? That wasn't going to fly.

They walked out together and Danai kissed him before sliding into her compact car. Tyler climbed into his truck and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while Danai drove out of the plaza. There was only one person he knew who could help him. He hoped he didn't fuck this up.

####

Tyler opened the glass door to Maggie's pharmacy. Some days, she had a crowd of people in here getting prescriptions or asking questions. Thankfully, he'd hit a quiet moment. She grinned at him from behind the high counter, her long auburn hair tucked behind her ears.

"What's up big bro?" Maggie scribbled a note to herself and then stepped down from the high counter where she filled prescriptions to the cash counter closer to the front door.

"Grady's still in L.A., right?" Tyler grabbed the tin of lollipops Maggie kept for the kids of Little Falls or their nephew, Nadir. Ripping the plastic off, he popped it into his mouth and stared at her.

"What's going on? You only do that when you want a cigarette. And you only want to do that when you're stressed."

Tyler chuckled and swirled the lollipop around his mouth. "Can Grady get in touch with Mia Malone and find out where she's staying tonight?" He'd called the local hotels on his way to his sister, Maggie's pharmacy. He'd tried the alias she'd given him last time she'd been in town. No luck.

"Mia Malone?" Maggie frowned, her dark brown eyes full of curiosity as she searched his face. "Why would you want to talk to her? I thought you were dating Danai?"

Tyler smothered his flare of annoyance. Wherever Mia was, she wasn't going to the clinic until tomorrow. There was no reason to lose his shit on his sister, especially when he needed her help. "You know how this fame thing works, right? Secrets don't stay secret. Is Grady good at keeping his mouth shut? I know you can keep a secret."

"He knows how damaging gossip can be to a career, yeah. What's going on? Is something wrong with Mia?"

Tyler took a deep breath. "She's pregnant. The baby's mine. She's getting an abortion tomorrow. I want to go with her, but she won't let me."

All the color drained from Maggie's face and then rushed back in a blaze of red. "You and Mia Malone? When? Oh, my God. You slept with her? Tyler, she's really young."

He held up a hand to stave off her tirade. Thankfully, her shoes were still on her feet, so she didn't intend to smack him for his behavior. Not that he didn't deserve it.

"And you didn't use protection? What if she has some kind of disease? Tyler!"

When she went to open her mouth again, he jumped in. "Cocksure Condoms fucked up. Faulty product. It wasn't—we weren't careless. It was the night of the benefit in October."

"Oh," Maggie said looking down at her laced hands, lost in thought for a moment. "A baby."

"Yeah." The words banged around his head, not landing anywhere logical.

"You're a dad."

"For the next." He checked his phone. "Fifteen hours or so."

"Are you okay?"

"To hell if I know." He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and stared at it before popping it back into his cheek. A cigarette would be so much better. But he'd promised his dad a few years ago he was done smoking for good. To hell if he'd break his promise now. "She doesn't want to keep the baby. I can't blame her. We don't know each other. She's got an incredible career. It didn't feel like something I could ask."

"Did you want to?"

Tyler sighed. "I don't know." He leaned against the counter and looked out the big pharmacy windows to the street outside. "I'm thirty-five. I've always wanted to be a dad."

"You're at an age where having a baby makes sense for you. You've got stability, maturity, financial independence. You live in a town where you'd have a good support system."

"Yeah, if only I could." He mimed taking a baby from someone. "Here, Mia. Let me carry the baby for you."

Maggie chuckled. "Sure. Just ask Mia to have the baby and give it to you to raise." She wagged her finger at Tyler. "That was a dumb suggestion. Sorry. My brain goes to some weird places sometimes." From under the counter, she produced her phone.

He turned back to the windows and let his sister's words turn in his brain. Even if Mia went for that suggestion, as crazy as it sounded, how would they keep something like a pregnancy a secret? And if they managed that feat, how would they keep a baby secret once he or she was born?

"Tyler? Did you hear me?" Maggie tapped him on the shoulder.

"Sorry." He made a whirling motion with his finger on the side of his head as he rotated to face her. "My brain is working overtime trying to sort out my feelings."

"Grady got her on the phone under some songwriting pretense." She passed her phone to him with a text message on the screen. "Hotel name and alias."

The hotel was a famous chain down the street from his second-hand shop. He frowned. When he'd called, he'd used the wrong alias. At least she was close.

"Are you going to talk to her?" Maggie plucked her phone from his hand.

"Yeah, at some point tonight. I need to get my head straight first."

"Whatever you two decide," Maggie said. "It's a permanent decision. There's no going back from it. You'll be tied together through that child for the rest of your lives."

Tyler nodded and pushed off the counter to an upright position. Forever. He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and leaned over Maggie's counter, dropping it into the trash.

"I hear you, Maggie. I hear you."

He wasn't sure if Mia would hear him out, but a plan was beginning to take shape.

Author's Note:

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on Mia, Tyler or their situation.

Their story is available in full on Radish Fiction but it has been renamed The Popstar's Baby. 

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